Table of Contents
1 Introduction
2 The Two Approaches Traffic Generation
2 Site Optimisation
2 Pay-Per-Click
3 Search Engines
4 Some Immutable Laws
4.1 Form Follows Function
4.2 You Never Get a Second Chance to Make a First Impression
4.3 What vs Who
4.4 Content is King
4.5 No Page More Than Two Clicks Away
4.6 Mighty Meta-tags
4.7 Dubious Practices
5 Site Submissions
6 Summary
What actually is search engine optimisation? This article sets out to dispel some of the myths surrounding SEO, and to promote awareness of the practice as tool to achieve a return on investment for your web site.
There is obviously confusion in the minds of many, as evidenced by the varied approaches seen within any cross-section of web sites. A lack of understanding is apparent on the part of many web designers e.g. those whose design techniques ensure that search engines cannot penetrate to any internal content!
In essence, SEO is the art of clarification and qualification, with a clear emphasis on the principle that “form follows function.” Thus, it is semantic, pedantic, and language-orientated rather than the marvel of the technical wizardry inherent in the dreaded Flash and JavaScript which (usually) serve to undermine it. Many designers obsess on form, building sites that serve as monuments to their creative genius. In an ideal world, a site would be first designed to fulfil its “function” of attracting clients and making sales, and its “form” would be one supporting element in the overall strategy aimed at achieving a “return on investment” for their clients.
To some degree, SEO is a moving target. Indeed, the pace of change in the past 2 years the major search engines have developed a habit of revising their relevancy ranking algorithms, amending listing options, changing alliances, altering customer base, changing names and content sources, not to mention buying and selling each other.
The bottom line is that it does not matter how good your site looks, if no one can find it.
There are several immutable laws that, if adhered to, will ensure your site prospers, and delivers the elusive ROI. The goal is generation of “qualified traffic” – defined as those who come to you because they want what you offer, and not by accident.
2 The Two Approaches Traffic Generation
The two approaches to raising the profile of a web site, SEO and PPC, are quite complimentary. Because it is difficult to optimise a site for a very wide range of keyword phrases, PPC marketing can greatly extend your reach. Optimise your site for the major keyword terms, and use PPC to target less obvious, lower volume keyword search terms.
First and foremost in generating traffic is site optimisation which, after the initial outlay, generates “free” traffic from search engines based on your ranking for particular search terms. This is the “Content is King” approach, and requires us to persuade the search engine that we have the content most relevant to the search. Volume and organisation is important, and we ensure that search engines can index all supporting content.
The “Function follows Form” approach, where you are quite prepared to pay to ensure people find your site, sometimes because its cheaper than rebuilding it. You “bid” for sponsored listing placement, and pay each time a visitor clicks on a “sponsored link” on a search engine and goes through to view your site. PPC allows you to generate traffic even if your site is poorly optimised, but is by far the most expensive option long term.
An advantage is that PPC campaign setup can allow the viewer to go direct to the page with the content most relevant for the term being used, e.g. bypassing splash pages etc.
The two heavyweights of PPC are Google’s Adwords, and Yahoo Search Marketing (previously Overture) Each has a slightly different approach to the PPC solution. Both are affordable and both have easy set up processes for establishing advertising campaigns. Copywriting is the key skill, as both have limited title and description space, which will have you sweating as you try to squeeze a sales pitch into a 35-40 character title!
There have been huge changes in the search engine scene in the past couple of years, from the spectacular rise of Google to the demise of Northern Light as a public search facility. Overture purchased AllTheWeb and AltaVista, and in turn was purchased by Yahoo, and so it went on. Google now supplies search results to almost half the lesser search engines – Anzwers, AOL, Netscape, ICQ Search, IWON etc.
However, from an SEO perspective the important changes are more fundamental than that, and relate to directory vs spider-based indexing. For a long period of time, an accurate listing in both the human-edited Yahoo Directory and the Open Directory were crucial to search engine traffic. Back then, even the spider-based engines such as Google placed great emphasis on directory categories, and if you were not listed in Open Directory, Google might not index you at all!
Both those directories seem now to have passed their “use-by date” in terms of delivering traffic but Google and Yahoo still place great emphasis on their links. Listings in the DMOZ and Yahoo directories are of tremendous credibility value to your site, and are probably the best links of all to have!
Between them, Google, Yahoo and MSN, account for almost 90% of all searches performed on the web, and all three of these search engines now derive their bulk content from spider-based indexing processes.
Therefore, it is more crucial than ever before that your site is optimised to allow your content to be indexed by search engine spiders!
There are some rules to be followed for success to occur…
Decide what role your web site should fulfil in your business plan. Build and maintain it to meet the defined functions. Keep it simple, make it fast and clean and above all, avoid any technology which impedes functionality. This includes unnecessary animations or graphics which slow page load times, encouraging visitors to move on to more responsive sites.
Databases can also be a serious impediment to indexing of internal content, and in many cases are total overkill, especially for smaller sites. Usually, they defeat the goal of creating multiple unique pages by serving generic Title, Description and Keyword meta-tags. They also generate complex URL’s which search engines cannot always penetrate, and even the creation of Site Map pages is rendered overly complex. Any URL with an “&” or a ‘?” in it has the potential to at best impede or at worst block a search engine spider’s access.
In most cases the use of databases is gratuitous and unnecessary, a fast-fix solution to the designer’s goal of churning out a site at the least possible cost and the greatest possible profit. In many cases a template approach would have been more suitable.
Templates if thoughtlessly implemented, may create equally serious impediments to unique page content. I.e. many template implementations do not provide for unique, page specific meta-tags.
Having one generic Title, Description and Keyword meta-tag on every page of the site is a truly appalling, but common, design “feature.”
4.2 You Never Get a 2nd Chance to Make a 1st Impression
Splash pages annoy people! This is a serious tactical mistake when you are trying to convert window-shoppers into clients. Splash pages are usually “slow to load” Flash or JavaScript applets which serve no purpose other than impede access to the “real” content. Attention spans on the Internet are short, and there are plenty of “good” sites to choose from. Eliminate every impediment and impel your visitors directly into the “guts” of your site.
The dreadful “Click to Enter Site” splash page with no content expels potential clients into cyberspace, looking for a “better” site that delivers immediate gratification to their quest.
Worse, the search engines place primary emphasis on the entry or Home page. If this page has no content, a fault common to almost all “splash” pages, can you guess where your rankings are going to be? Nowhere, because the search engine cannot find enough content to even categorise the site, let alone establish its relevancy to a query.
Clarify what it is your site offers, and ensure that this is clearly articulated throughout its content. Unless you are a “household name” brand, the focus should be on what you produce, sell or service, not on who you are.
Searchers usually refine a query with 2-4 words, e.g. “stainless steel spade” It is amazing how many sites waste vital opportunities with fatuous lines like “Welcome to my web site.”
Define the key words or phrases that potential customers would use to find you. Ensure that those are prominent components of every title, description, heading and paragraph, and part of a coherent sales pitch. For example the Johnson spade manufacturer’s site title ought not be “Welcome to the Johnson Agricultural Implements Web Site.” Instead, a minimalist “Stainless steel spades by Johnson” would provide maximum keyword density.
- The goal of search engines is to deliver the most relevant content for each search
- Your goal is to make sure your content is relevant to any search made for products or services you offer!
The best way to ensure “free” prominence for your site is to provide valuable, in-depth, relevant content. A few lines of explanatory text buried inside a Flash animation do not do this. Product reviews, case studies, white papers, client testimonials, newsletters and manufacturers specifications are good content creation sources.
Make each page unique, and target a specific key word or phrase in meta-tags and body text.
Sites constructed entirely in Flash might look great, but they are destined for mediocrity in the “free” search engine traffic stakes.
4.5 No Page More Than Two Clicks Away
Wherever you are within a site, no page should be more than 2 clicks away from you. The search engines will usually only drill 3 layers deep. If you want all content indexed, this is a crucial issue, usually resolved via a Home page link to a site map page which in turn has text links to every internal page. A recent alternative is the Google Site Maps submission service which is well worth the effort of signing up to, not least for the excellent statistical information Google will provide you!
It is also important to provide hyperlinks to main internal pages from within Home Page body text. This elevates their importance, and reinforces keywords or phrases within the Home Page with relevant supporting content.
There are many meta-tags. Most are ignored. Some, like the “keyword” tag are now less used by search engines due to persistent abuse. However, there are still two meta-tags crucial to your goal of a steady stream of qualified traffic. Both provide an opportunity to control exactly what viewers see by way of search engine results, and thus influence viewers decision to select your site from that list.
Both provide valuable information to the search engines as they try to determine the site’s theme, category, type etc;
First is the Title, the content of which is displayed on the top line of the browser when viewing a site. The page title is also used as the “headline” displayed when/if it appears on a search engine’s search results page. This is a crucial 1st impression, and again, “Welcome to My Web Site” does not cut the mustard. Summarise your offerings in less than 10 words, ensuring that the primary keywords or phrase is pre-eminent, thus ensuring maximum keyword density.
Second is the Description tag, often used verbatim in search engine’s search results page. Again, this gives you an opportunity to influence a searcher’s click-through decision, and should reinforce the message in the title in less than 25 words / 200 characters. Again, the primary keywords or phrase should occur at the start of the description to ensure emphasis, and total character count should be restricted to 200 in order to maintain maximum keyword density.
Necessity is the mother of invention, and the vital importance of Top 10 search engine rankings has spawned some seriously dodgy mechanisms to enable sites to climb to the top of the heap. These have ranged from the simple tricks of hidden text to the mysteries of doorway and hallway pages, link farms, and on to the intricacies of cloaking and redirection.
Basic rule of thumb should be – don’t do anything which might be construed as spamming, or subverting the search engines indexes.
Once a site is banned from a search engine index, it’s pretty much dead in the water. The search engines are always on the alert to newly discovered loopholes and close them quickly once discussion of new “trick” begins in search engine forums and list servers. Instead, rise to the top of the heap on merit, it’s a better long-term strategy!
Having rebuilt your site in a search engine friendly fashion, how do you ensure it’s included within the indexes of the various search engines. This is another area which has changed dramatically. A few short years ago, listings were free. Not that long ago, you’d have to buy into a 48 hourly indexing process on Inktomi etc to ensure you stayed listed. Such a system delivered good value to the customer whilst generating good revenue for the search engines.
The state of flux seems to have eased. Indexing footpaths have been constructed between linked sites – to the point where if you have no good links TO your site, you may not be indexed at all, regardless of manual submissions.
The “Submission to 10,000 Search Engines for $99.95” was never good value, and is even less so today.
In terms of total traffic potential, the three main search engines are Google, Yahoo and MSN, each of which feed their results into sundry subsidiary search engines and portals. The Big Three account for around 90% of all searches performed on the Internet. They are all now “spider” type engines, which index the content of web sites in an automated manner, and are not hierarchical, human-edited directories. They all have supplementary “sponsored listings” derived from PPC advertising subscription systems.
For a site owner, search engine optimisation of your web site is now even more important than it ever was. Your goal of a steady stream of qualified traffic is best met by ensuring you have the best content, organised/optimised in the best manner, and supplemented by well designed and managed PPC campaigns.
If you are a web designer, you have an obligation to your clients to ensure their sites are built in a manner which facilitates search engine indexing, instead of impeding it. Establish the function first, and the form as a secondary issue.
If you are business planning a new web site (or contemplating reconstruction of an existing site) insist on making SEO the most important design criteria, it will save you money in the long term, and ensure the return on investment (ROI) timetable is shortened.
Ben Kemp,
aka “The SEO Guy” (NZ)
Authors Note: Ben is a free-lance IT consultant and one of NZ’s longest serving SEO practitioners, working mainly for small to medium-sized business clients in New Zealand and Australia. A recipient of NZ and Australasian awards for achievement in Information Technology, he works either from his home on the rugged West Coast of New Zealand’s South Island, or from an apartment in Thailand – depending on the weather, and if its trout fishing season or not!
Contact Details;
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The SEO Guy (NZ)
Email: bjk@TheSeoGuy.co.nz
Web: www.comauth.co.nz
Phone (+64) 0274 778 078
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